Will we be able to meet the challenges of transformation?

Will we be able to meet the challenges of transformation?

Highlights :

The exit from Covid-confinement is here and with it its cocktail of apprehensions for some, for others the enthusiasm to participate in a new world and for a few still the urgency to maintain the world as it was.

So much so, that futurists, faced with the unpredictability demonstrated by Covid, find themselves quite at ease in defining what our future will look like, which is likely to be plural[1] and therefore to bring a diversity of reactions and possibilities.

What this singular moment in our history points to is both the diversity of human responses and also our particular relationship to change.

Human diversity thought

We will begin with an illumination of this plurality.

The model of the Dynamic Spiral allows us to understand why there can be at the same moment in history various concomitant and heterogeneous reactions on the same territory.

The initial author of this model, Clare W. Graves [1], professor of psychology, sought to develop a theory that would reconcile approaches that evoke the evolution of human nature and the psychological maturity of individuals. By crossing numerous models, he has succeeded in establishing a coherent model that presents the diversity of humanity through levels of existence. These levels of existence allow us to understand the complexity of the world through different reading grids and values[2] that condition sometimes incompatible behaviours (e.g. the representation of freedom).

This theory allows us to grasp the diversity of individual and collective responses to the same stimulus, as is currently the case with the Covid. According to the values that animate us and which are at the same time the fruit of our culture, of our education and also of these levels of existence, we apprehend such a singular situation very differently and of course our responses and behaviours can then find themselves in confrontation with each other.

The interest is therefore to have interpretative compasses of differences in order to be able to collectively manage individual and group behaviours.

As an example, let's mention the variety of behaviors screened by the Dynamic Spiral.

Pandemic and living standards (value systems)

Let's go back over the thread of this singular event through the Dynamic Spiral's reading grid and see what understanding we can draw from it.

First of all, there was the announcement of the Covid and later that of the confinement.

The shock, the astonishment [3] of the pandemic stopped everyone, clearly. The planetary contact with health, the danger for everyone potentially, the potential imminence of illness and death brought the majority of human beings back to the beige level (that of survival). For many it is still the seat of fears, even phobias of the other, we have seen, in the very first days, reactions of rejection from Asians. This revived features (beige) of survival and (red) of impulsivity and violence directed against others.

Then, quickly, it is also the return to the beliefs of animist and magical thinking (purple), turning to meditations, the suggestions of magical thinking and the advice of the First Peoples to shed light on this uncertain future. It is also the need for reliance, belonging, security of the nest, many have chosen to return to their families during the confinement. A return to the womb, a uterine withdrawal into the family home and with it the symbioses with the relatives - or conversely the violence (we will come back to this later) - and the fears to emerge. The anguish of the outside world has become pervasive over the weeks. The uncertainty of a plural and unpredictable "next world" worries and awakens individual anxieties which are appeased by the links developed, in particular by social networks. This makes it possible to create a community of links and meaning. And for those who have never stopped their activity, it also represented a bubble of oxygen.

There is also, especially in the early days, the individualistic (orange) carelessness with walks on the beach or along the banks of the Seine or elsewhere, "this does not concern us and we will not deprive ourselves of freedom". And also what exactions, thefts, trafficking, physical and virtual malevolence and above all domestic violence (mainly on women and children) accentuated by forced and long cohabitation (red). Then the state provided an institutional response (blue) with increasingly strict containment measures - the authorization to leave, sadly reminiscent of the Ausweis moments - as "disobedience/inconsciousness" took place. Individualism (orange) and virulence (red) confront institutional hardening. This institutional response can also be seen as (red/blue) because it is at the same time containing, enacting a rule for all, seeking to contain violence or individualistic impulses, but by passing into authoritarian mode, it is similar to (red). The attitudes of denunciation[4], with the protection of anonymity, also remind us of very sad moments of the twentieth century and also raise the question of civil self-regulation.

We are then living in a strong liberticidal moment where all the powers are concentrated - which is specific to times of crisis [5]: strong leadership to keep the group together - which amounts to regressing on the democratic quality of debates (freedom developed in Orange) and modalities of concertation developed in (Green) mode.

Faced with this unprecedented moment in our human history, commercial proposals (Orange) have emerged but have been marginal, it was rather the surge of solidarity offers (Green) aimed at connecting, helping each other, finding ways to improve living together. It is a question of calming fears and tensions and promoting prospects and a way out of the crisis towards an "after-world". Physical and virtual cooperation is being put in place. Numerical answers (yellow) appear, this allows a digital leap in skills. Those who are the most cautious about digital, out of conviction and ideological commitment (green), are obliged to adapt because they are condemned to confinement and to "see" nothing of what is being developed. A confinement within confinement.

Digital technology has allowed massive and almost immediate rethinking of the world after [6], several events have taken place, including some international events aimed at thinking and acting for the near and more distant future. It was also a flood of individual videos in which each person shows his or her ex-self, gives his or her point of view on "tomorrow", mixing the narcissistic / egotistical need for personal visibility (orange) with a surge (green) of support for others.

An agitated and plural output

We understand that the exit from the containment will be as agitated as the entry, and even more so, through the behaviour of each person than was the entry.

Some will rush to excessive consumption to counterbalance the effects of confinement (orange), compensate for the holidays of the being by the illusions of having, others will put all the energy to resume their activity (orange) and many will engage their economic survival (beige).

An exodus from the city is to be envisaged and the schoolchildren (green) and other resource areas in nature risk being invaded and departures from the massive cities. This will raise a number of pragmatic questions: the dream could rub up against a reality that is rougher than it seems.

The applications, drones or surveillance chips (red/blue) will be so tempting to put in place that going back to democratic and ethical debates seems quite illusory.

So perhaps some people, with an appetite for a new world, distinct from the previous one, will be able to achieve mature convergences to propose realistic paths (green/yellow)?

 Not to mention the actors who need the business to return to the way it was before, even considering more working hours to compensate (orange) for the lack of performance. 

Crime (red) will take on new forms again. For our cities, currently deserted by the majority of citizens, have seen their streets and parks become the areas of increased delinquency, without the intervention of the forces of law and order.

Creativity to organise themselves economically using digital means (yellow) to anticipate bankruptcies will lead to the reorganisation of the scope of activities, and to cooperation and managerial innovation.

Thus, an anthology of very different needs and values will rub shoulders, let us hope that they will not clash, under the influence of fear [7].

Therefore, in the face of these uncertainties, many people see the arrival of deconfinement with apprehension, a kind of spleen of the comfort of home, similar to that of childbirth. Indeed, for some, this gestation translates into a rebirth.

The outside has become dangerous. It took two months to change the behaviour of many people. Resilience will want a return to the "normal" situation in order to forget this trauma as quickly as possible, however, these two months will have left a lasting impression on people's minds.

The seeds of a profound transformation have been sown, even if the first emergency for many economic actors will be to return to a recovered activity.

And this raises the thorny question of change and real transformations.

Those who love peace must learn to organize themselves as effectively as those who love war. Martin Luther King

How can we not fall back into the same patterns?

The economic emergency is pushing back the in-depth transformation of our society in the medium and long term. Here again, however, everyone's priorities differ according to their values and needs. Thus, the question we can ask ourselves is the following: has the Covid and its correlate confinement led us to real metamorphoses or have we fallen into the traps of the processes of change?

The classical reference model for reporting the individual and collective change process is based on the work of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross [8]. We borrow from ValueMach, a diagram that again illustrates the plurality of reactions to change and allows us to understand this cacophony of information, opinions, decisions and actions.

There are several pathways in the face of the "trauma" we have just experienced: the first reaction is to be in denial and to put all our energy into getting back to business "as usual". For marketing reasons, it will moreover be called "new usual", a good way to "sell" the old by marketing it under the illusion of the new.

In the diagram below, this is equivalent to going from "alpha" or "new alpha", from state A to state B, but which is pretty much the same thing. The essential psychological research of this attitude is to find balance as quickly as possible, to avoid instability and especially questioning, whether individual or collective. We relooke and we don't change anything. Intelligence is used to maintain the status quo. And this often translates into agitation in the face of instability in order to regain homeostasis as quickly as possible.

Source ValueMach

Source : ValueMach

The second proposed pathway, "Beta - Flex and New Alpha", corresponds to the fact of having begun the cognitive and emotional mourning process related to a situation that is recognized as being over and whose future (new alpha) can never be identical to the previous situation. This makes some people say that there will be a before and after Covid. However, the discomfort, particularly of confinement, pushes people to use their intelligence and energy to find solutions without going through the emotional journey of deconstruction. They will bring innovative methods but which remain mostly in the same model, the same paradigm. The tool changes but not the content.

There is more change than in the first path, however, if you look at it closely, it is still pretty much the same.

What Paul Watzlawick [9], a theorist of change from the Palo Alto School, had described as Level 1 change [10]. 10] That is, believing that we are changing, but pursuing the same momentum as the previous model. Innovations have been found, but the fundamental transformation has not yet taken place. It is a change in continuity, it takes place in the same system (of norms, values...) while thinking that we have changed it.

Thus the third proposed path (Alpha - Gamma - Delta and New Alpha) corresponds to Watzlawick's level 2 change, a real paradigm shift. It is a breakthrough change. It is a question of profoundly modifying the system itself.

To achieve this, only a descent into the abyss of deep inner transformation leads to this metamorphosis. What Carl Gustav Jung called individuation.

It is necessary, as the popular expression says, "to have reached the bottom", to have descended into those spaces where our whole system collapses, our landmarks are shaken and revisited so that something profoundly new can happen. And in order to do this, we have to accept the descent into the emotional abyss.

And because we are not prepared for it, we don't have the instructions, so we try to avoid it.

Conclusion 

This singular moment that our humanity is going through confronts our relationship to change, our capacity to question ourselves deeply and then to revisit the models in which we have developed our activities: what makes society, what makes democracy, the economy, politics, etc., and what makes the world a better place.

And we can see that the majority of people will choose the first path, a few having understood the stakes will start the second path and respond again through processes to fundamental existential and ontological transformations. And a handful will courageously engage in the deep and complete metamorphosis, betting on an inner alchemy for a collective alchemy.

This is why, in the short term, the changes will not be very apparent and resistances and reactions, no doubt violent, will come to confront the various visions of the world and above all the modalities of response proposed by the different levels of existence (Dynamic Spiral) of the citizens. Withdrawals and backtracking in the face of the complexity of the world will be the visible manifestations of the world to come. The general public media relaying above all the attitudes of the first journey, occasionally those of the second journey. Only the independent media venture to relay the emerging paths.

However, those who will have started a profound change in their way of being will no longer be in attitudes aimed at convincing their entourage but will bring a quality of influence that will change their leadership and their influence on their environment. It is their alignment and their ethics that will give envy and reassurance in a turbulent and chaotic moment. It is then, by contagion, that others will accept to embark on the journey of in-depth change to co-create truly original solutions that respond to collective problems.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Original article : https://blogs.mediapart.fr/christine-marsan/blog/140520/saurons-nous-relever-les-defis-de-la-transformation

Christine Marsan, 5 mai 2020.

Notes :

[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clare_Graves

[2] https://intelligencecollectiveconsciente.wordpress.com/2018/06/25/spirale-dynamique/?fbclid=IwAR1Pm8btWtOFV0iWHbX2yjB2fVJDT1-SMbe-xTy9emQu4FEJlMEmkWDJvck

[3] En lien avec les étapes du deuil d’élisabeth Kübler-Ross.

[4] https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/grand-est/bas-rhin/strasbourg-0/coronavirus-gens-confines-se-prennent-policiers-appels-au-17-delation-explosent-strasbourg-1812200.html?fbclid=IwAR0xjpK-mqurRrJFRKk_xL0RtB1DYC-jnOS11j0D5Am0x3U8q3aRpebdksI

[5] https://conformismemediassociaux.wordpress.com/approfondissements/ ; expérience sur l’autorité détaillée dans C. Marsan, Composer avec les conflits, Editions Arno, 2019. https://www.arnoeditions.org/catalogue/management-cooperation-composer-avec-les-conflits et aussi : https://books.google.fr/books?hl=fr&lr=&id=CXldDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA15&dq=Expérience+de+Muzar+Sherif+et+leadership&ots=FsGLUKNTE7&sig=g3vhgIGnnB2wLmzPle5OJAnEkXA#v=onepage&q=Expérience%20de%20Muzar%20Sherif%20et%20leadership&f=falseet aussi : https://patrick-fournier.com/d/cours13-3140.pdf

[6] Un exemple : https://www.facebook.com/groups/theviralopenspace/?fref=gs&dti=331139744247279&hc_location=group

[7] https://blogs.mediapart.fr/christine-marsan/blog/270420/de-la-pandemie-de-peur-la-contagion-de-la-resilience

[8] C. Marsan Réussir le changement, DeBoeck, 2008.

https://www.deboecksuperieur.com/ouvrage/9782804156282-reussir-le-changement

[9] https://lirsa.cnam.fr/medias/fichier/pwatzlawicketalchangement__1262880558169.pdf

[10] https://www.palo-alto-et-compagnie.com/logique-du-changement/

[1] https://blogs.mediapart.fr/christine-marsan/blog/290320/demain-sera-ce-que-nous-en-ferons-et-pourrait-etre-pluriel




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